


The Silent Pool

by invisibledeity



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Animal Abuse, Gen, Men Crying, PTSD, Referenced past abuse, long term trauma recovery, older men with too many emotions, poor navyth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 12:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14915492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisibledeity/pseuds/invisibledeity
Summary: Navyth likes to live in solitude for a reason. Some scars may fade with time, sure, but sometimes all it takes is an encounter with a man like Ardyn to bring it all back. A small story about the old men that people forget, and about the cruelty that takes a lifetime to put behind you.





	The Silent Pool

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not having a great time right now. I can't write my other stories at the moment, but I really, really wanted a story about an older man who's still struggling, so I wrote it. It's never simple. Also Navyth is cool, and I'd totally hang with him and listen to his stories. Maybe give him a hug too.

 

 

 

He stood at the edge of the lake, tasting the sweet spring air rising in waves from the cool water as the sun lifted, inch by inch, over the horizon. So peaceful here, always so peaceful. Further out, the grand humps of the catoblepas rose out of the water like miniature islands, gently breathing. Magical, at this hour. He could get lost in it, perhaps forever, and that would suit him just fine. Things were better out here.

            Navyth sighed, and sank his boots more firmly into the loamy soil. A little more, and he was starting to feel at one with his surroundings, planted like a tree. And alone, so wonderfully alone; the way he liked things best, and the only way to stop the rush and chitter at his ears.

            He was too old. Had seen too much. And didn’t care to explain. And so, the Alstor Slough made for a better place to pass the time than the streets of Lestallum, or even the smaller settlements: Swainsmere, Rydielle Ley, Nebulawood. Here, nothing much cast a shadow ‘sides for the animals.

            A wave of unexpected anxiety rose to soft crescendo in his chest, then abated as quickly as it had come. He returned to a crouch, prepping his bait. Stood. Cast the line. There; far out enough that he could catch a crag barramundi, if he was lucky. And now, the wait.

            The sun rose. The sleeping giants stirred. Across the waterfront, herons and moorhens joined in Navyth’s quest for a morning meal, chorusing together in croaks and pips. So easily mistaken for frogs, those birds, and Navyth had chuckled yesterday, seeing the young Prince go off running errands for that scientist lady up at the gas station. Had taken him much longer than he’d expected to find frogs, for that very reason.

            Of course he had recognised the Prince. He had not been crude enough to make mention of it, however, keeping to himself where he had fished from the banks. Let the boy have what fun he could; it was a dark time for all of them, and he was too young — _too young —_ to spend every minute of his day suffering.

            And besides, it was warming to see someone, especially someone so young, keen to stand at the water’s edge and take in, _truly_ take in his surroundings.

            The fish were not biting today. What had them so spooked?

            ‘I do hope you don’t mind if I join you?’ A voice saccharine and soft, threading its way to his ears. How strange that another man had gotten so close without him hearing the approach, because Navyth had keen ears, incredibly keen. How strange, for sure. But that voice, now. Reminded him of petals falling. Yet when he turned, he saw a man made of all hard edges.

            Maybe no-one else would see that. Maybe they would just see the soft layers of fabric, the oddly-elaborate scarf, the faded and frayed red hair and the lines on the man’s face and think yes, this is another old, friendly fisherman, come to the water to pass idle time.

            As Navyth might expect, too, the man wore a fishing gilet over his layered shirt, and striped slacks, and boots quite suitable for treading through the mud, but there was something about even these most mundane items that were somehow overstated. Navyth was … overly attuned to these things, to put it lightly. But, sensible man that he was, he said nothing out of sorts, merely offering a polite greeting in return before turning his attentions back to his rod.

            ‘’Course not. Wouldn’t mind some company.’

            ‘Marvellous. Then allow me to get myself set up.’

            Navyth peered over as the red-haired man shrugged off his bag — a plain grey thing with velvety straps — and retrieved a well-worn but ornate fishing rod, replete with lures that looked aeons old. He took his sweet time selecting a lure, settling at last for a custard jammer. Deft ties as he secured it to the line.

            ‘Ah, now that’s better.’

            And he fell into rhythm alongside Navyth, casting his line with learned proficiency, metres out so that the benthos-dwellers could reach it.

            ‘So what’re you out here for? Crag barramundi?’ He had seen the custard jammer, he knew what that was for.

            ‘The very same,’ the man replied, with faint amusement in his voice, and there was something about that which was off-putting to Navyth, more so when he added, ‘For why not catch the sweeter meat? I wouldn’t settle for Alstor bass.’

            Navyth nodded, out of politeness. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘barramundi ain’t bitin’ so much today, I’m afraid.’

            ‘Is that so?’

            Navyth gave another nod, then the man said, ‘We’ll have to see what we can do about that.’ Odd. Did the man fancy he held power over such things? Misplaced hope in Lady Luck, perhaps. Navyth fell back into his own vigil, waiting for the bite on the line, waiting for the moment he could shift into action.

            For a while, it was quiet between them. The birds continued their morning calls, one of the catoblepas rose and wallowed in the muck for a while, and the clouds gathered on the horizon, building in ever-towering tufts as the water evaporated under the sun’s gaze.

            ‘I always did enjoy fishing,’ the man said out of the blue. He had cut in just when Navyth was getting comfortable with silence once more, and it was enough to keep his sense of social awareness slightly on edge.

            ‘You did, huh?’ Navyth spoke with gentle agreement, commiseration, because even though the man had him on edge, he could see his love for the sport in the way he held the rod, in the way he stood so relaxed and at peace alongside him.

            The man nodded, and his red hair caught the light and, for a moment, it looked far less faded than it had on his first arrival, glowing near-on russet like a garula’s hide in autumn. ‘My brother, not so much,’ he added, before he fell into quiet, his lips quirking downward. ‘And I always was the … outcast of the family.’ There, the smallest of tugs on the man’s line. His hand, quivering, and that was something near-on undetectable. But Navyth knew fishing, and knew it well, and the smallest gesture did not go unnoticed.

            ‘Ain’t nothin’ wrong with likin’ fishing,’ Navyth commented.

            ‘A man after my own heart.’ The newcomer’s voice reached a deeper timbre with that last word, settling into Navyth’s ribcage like a drum’s echo. Again with the silence, and again, just when Navyth had settled, another burst of speech. ‘Now, I would fear this is a dying art, but I hear my brother’s own progeny is quite taken up with the sport these days.’

            ‘That so? Well I’m … glad to hear it.’ And Navyth turned his attentions back to the line.

            The newcomer’s arrival was fortuitous, because not long after that, the fish started biting. The first catch was Navyth’s, and he reeled it in as expertly as he could, despite the mounting pressure to perform that this unusual stranger’s presence had gifted him.

            Horned bluegill. Not quite what he was after. He sighed, and reached for his mallet. One swift stroke to the head and the slippery creature stopped its thrashing. Navyth turned it over in his hands, made sure it was dead, and laid it out in the bucket alongside him.

            ‘I don’t believe that’s a barramundi,’ his new companion quipped.

            ‘Well. Little point in throwing it back, like.’

            ‘Whyever not?’

            ‘Erm…’

            ‘Because it worries them? Come now, everyone needs a little stress now and then.’

            Navyth felt his own eyebrows tighten.

            ‘Nothin’ of the sort, my good man.’ It was everything of the sort, but there was more to it than that, so Navyth continued. ‘This time of year, bluegills’re breedin’ enough as it is. You don’t want to unbalance the local ecology.’

            The newcomer smirked — yes, that was a smirk — and paid Navyth’s catch no more mind.

            Unsettled, Navyth re-spooled the line and continued, tried again. Still the sun beat down, not strong enough to warrant a cap or shades, but strong enough to make the air quite pleasant and the view enrapturing. If not for the mounting tension in his gut, tense as the line he had strung, Navyth would be tempted to consider it a perfect day.

            The second catch was the newcomer’s.

            Navyth watched sidelong as the man reeled it in, taking his sweet time to do so. Now, here was a fellow who delighted in the sport, true enough, although something was —

            He couldn’t quite place it.

            Eventually the man picked up the slack in the line, and reeled the fish out onto the muddy shore. He watched, amused, as the fish flopped and wriggled, gills flaring in the open air in vain.

            ‘That’s a big’un.’ Navyth peered at the catch, impressed. He’d never seen a crag barramundi so fine before in these waters. Damn specimen of that size must have been eluding him all morning, and how, he wasn’t quite sure. His lures were usually bang on the money.

            Navyth was waiting for what should follow, but the newcomer did not club the fish about the head, nor attempt to remove the lure. He simply watched, and with each flailing motion his smile cracked all the wider. Seconds seemed to slow to eternities.

            ‘What in all Eos’re you waiting for, man?’ Navyth couldn’t stop his voice bristling into frustration. Watching the fish slowly suffocate was torturous. Another long, long second and he reached for his mallet.

            The man stopped him.

            ‘Ah-ah. Let it be.’ A hand gripped firm over his wrist. It wasn’t hard and was nowhere near the point of pain, but it was definite. Something cracked deep inside Navyth’s soul under the weight of this — what was even happening? — this strange, uncomfortable situation. Such a simple, everyday thing, watching a fish die out of water, but here it felt so horribly wrong, so unnecessary, and why did the man have this _look_ on his face? Like Christmas had come early.

            Navyth wanted to throw up his breakfast.

            Then, the man reached with his free hand, drawing the fish up by the wire hooked into its jaw, all the while never releasing Navyth from his grip. The fish dangled, suspended, its ability to wriggle all countered by gravity. Whole body convulsing in attempts to suck in water that just wasn’t there.

            The man brought the fish closer to his face until its tail was flicking the ends of his red, red hair as he watched it, curious as a child, before smiling and finally, finally releasing Navyth’s wrist from his grip. Both hands worked the hook free from the struggling fish, and with a quick flick he tossed the frenzied creature back into the water where it splashed about in utter chaos for many moments too long before it found its way back to safety.

            And all the while, this pleasured, sublime expression like a prophet performing a miracle. As the man turned from the lake, he caught Navyth’s eyes and Navyth wanted to shrink under the weight, to get as far away from him as possible, but he kept his composure. Said nothing. Suppressed his reaction.

            The stranger was having none of it.

            ‘Are you quite all right, dear fellow?’

            ‘I…’ Navyth searched for words. The man was stringing him along, and he couldn’t just pass it off as nothing, he’d smell that a mile off. Fine, he would play. ‘Why’d you throw it back? Didn’t you want a barramundi?’

            ‘Oh, I did. I got exactly what I wanted.’

            Adrenaline blossomed through Navyth’s chest. Everything was wrong — _everything was wrong —_ and he stilled his racing heart and gripped on his rod and watched the water sparkling in the faint sunlight and focussed hard on the gentle wind against his cheek.

            The man beside him sighed and put hands to hips, stared longingly across the water like he was watching the departure of a divorced lover.

            ‘Ah, but I’ve spent enough time at the water’s edge. I must be on my way.’

            That was it? He was just going to up and leave after that? Navyth watched him pack away his things, cagey as a stray coeurl, and he waited until the man was near on his way before he spoke again.

            ‘Pressing business, I assume?’

            ‘Oh, after a fashion. Family matters.’

            Again, that grin.

            ‘Well, then. Safe, uh, safe travels on the road.’

            The man bowed, just enough to make a deal of it, but not enough to show reverence, and then he was off, striding back up the grass bank to the highway where a maroon lowrider waited. Normally, Navyth might have considered the car a perfect midlife-crisis purchase to keep his eye on, but as his newfound friend sank into the driver’s seat — and even from this distance he could see his hands caressing the wheel — Navyth decided if he was to ever buy a midlife-crisis car, it would be a damn off-roader.

            The car revved too hard as it sped off, making him wince, and Navyth realised in the lull it left in its wake that he hadn’t even asked the man’s name.

 

For the rest of the day, Navyth’s catch was poor, and he contented himself with some much-needed R&R, tending to the wear and tear of his rods, fixing up the lures, catching fresh grubs — live-bait for tomorrow’s haul. He dried four of the five fish he had caught, and saved the final one for dinner. Tomorrow he’d do the same again, and then the next day, and then back to Galdin Quay to pawn off the earnings to Coctura’s kitchen.

            Not a bad life. Not a bad life, even when the catch was poor. All he needed was a guitar for these in-between moments, to join in the call of the birds.

            When twilight fell — and that was coming much earlier than usual these days — Navyth weighed up the prospects of finding a place to kip for the night. Tent, or motel? Hard earth or well-worn mattress? After a way of consideration, he decided to head to the outpost. He walked all the way up to the motel by the gas station, and stood at the door for five long minutes, until his eyes had traversed the same streaks in the wood panelling to oblivion. The marks looked like entire continents this close up, so broad and expansive, such a chore to push through, despite the warm comforts he knew lay just beyond, and just like that, it was too much. He turned away from the barrier, and faced back across the slough. The people walking by him, heading straight for the diner, what did they see when they idled on by? An old, grumbling man, perhaps. Nobody of note. Nobody with any stories worth telling. At this age, and looking the way he did, he was practically invisible.

            Backpack hoisted further up across his shoulders, he walked back across the highway, not bothering to head for the stairwell, jacking his legs over the guardrail and dropping down to the turf with a soft thud. Then, back down the grassy knoll until he’d reached the fringes of the trees by the water’s edge. A little further back, back into the dry leaf-covered dirt where the protective runes glowed, far enough that the mud wouldn’t leech through, and there, he pitched his tent.

 

That night, the fish tasted good enough cooked on his small portable gas stove. White flesh pared away clean from bone and the turmeric and pepper he’d seasoned it with added the tang he expected, but all the same, it passed into his mouth like nothing more than a mechanical process.

 _Make the best use of every bite,_ his grandfather told him. Don’t let its sacrifice go to waste.

            He caught himself on the swallow.

            Who was he fooling? It was no sacrifice, it was nothing so noble. It was just — brutal, yes, but that was what life demanded. Everything he ate, everything he did, would destroy _something_. He just had to minimise the damage. Appreciate the reality. It was far better to see it with his own eyes than have it served up cold and connectionless on a Crow’s Nest platter.

            The man by the lake entered his mind unbidden, and the nausea returned.

            He finished up his food and settled in for the night, curling up on the roll mat, pulling the blanket up around him. Nausea wasn’t leaving, no matter which way he turned.

            He could almost place it, on the very tip of his tongue, the memory this man brought up, rushing from the depths like mosquito larvae from stagnant pools of water. Catching the fish just to torture it and chuck it back. Just for the sake of toying with it, just for the sake of watching its little heart go pitter-patter as it roiled and flopped in the shallow mud.

            His hands were clenched. Hurting. He released them, slowly, his own heart racing just in case he needed to _hit_ , to defend, to protect.

            _Calm yourself. Still yourself. You know what this is reminding you of._

            And so, staring up at the tent canvas, he thought, for a long time, on how young he had been, how _young_ , and how cruel that nothing seemed to fade with time. Had it hurt more because he had been young, because his body hadn’t had enough time to grow? Pain signals amplified in the lack of understanding, in the fear.

            There came their faces, lines as heavy as the man at the lake’s, jawlines just as bold, smiles just as dangerous. They shimmered out from the nothing in front of him, taunting, delighting, mimicking, and he closed his ears to it, morphed the words into something other before they could reach him. Pretend it’s not real — _forty years have long since gone, and you’re in a little tent by the waterside and nothing is wrong, and nothing is wrong._

            People always said grown men don’t cry. They were liars. Navyth sobbed into the blanket until the wetness cooled his overheated cheeks. He wanted so badly to have something make it slip its hold, to stop it from feeling so raw and so close and so _within_ everything.

            _Calm yourself._

            He listened to the kinder internal voice. And eventually, gloriously, he fell to sleeping. He dreamt of sinking into that loamy soil until his toes took root and his skin flaked into detritus. He dreamt of mushroom spores finding the soft hollows of his pores and embedding themselves there, growing out from him in spongy bouquets; food for the forest animals. He sank into his new state, slowly, softly, until he became one with everything around him.

 

Dreams never lasted, and soon the dawn came with its chorus of birds and crickets and, yes, the faint _wark_ of a chocobo over the other side of the lake. Up at Wiz’s ranch, they always were a reliable herald to the dawn.

            He began the day as he had the previous one, only this time his anxiety was already mounting, and he prayed to Eos that he wouldn’t encounter that man again.

            He didn’t meet that man, but he did meet the boy, the young prince. This time, the lad and his troupe came wandering over to the slough from the southern side, looking exhausted and yet at the same time, invigorated by the outdoors.

            This made Navyth smile. But he didn’t interrupt them, keeping to himself right up until they came up close to his fishing spot.

            ‘C’mon, man,’ the Prince was saying to one of the older men, the one with glasses. ‘Just half an hour. I just want to catch one.’

            ‘Just one. Mm-hm.’ Glasses-guy raised a critical eyebrow, but there was good humour under that expression. ‘Off you go, then.’ Then, to Navyth, ‘Morning.’

            ‘Morning. You fellas come down from the chocobo ranch?’

            The little blond guy spoke up, and he was far more excitable than any of the others.

            ‘Yeah! We totally got to ride the chocobos last night. It was great!’

            ‘That Wiz takes real good care of his birds,’ Navyth said, and the blond boy murmured a soft ‘Yeah’ in agreement.

            ‘Kid’s got it bad,’ the rugged, heavily-muscled guy at the back of the group said. Then he turned his eyes to Navyth. ‘Thought we’d get some fresh air before hitting the road later. See some of the sights. But chuckles here,’ — and the guy jerked a thumb at the Prince — ‘wanted to spend it fishing.’

            A mildly disappointed sigh from the blond boy — bless the soul, he was probably wishing he was riding the chocobos again.

            ‘Fine day for fishing,’ Navyth said, and the Prince’s eyes sparked.

            ‘Yeah! Hey, old man, got any tips for me?’ He was already getting his own rod sorted out, and Navyth couldn’t prevent a warm smile spreading across his face at the boy’s enthusiasm. He didn’t even mind being called ‘old man’, in this case.

            ‘Well, sure. Depends what you’re keen to catch, though.’ He paused. He didn’t want to think about barramundi again, but it _was_ the best-tasting catch in the lake. ‘So, this lure’s best for the catfish, but you’ll be wanting this one,’ — he laid a finger on the custard jammer — ‘or some good worm bait for the crag barramundi.’

            ‘Oh, sweet.’ The kid really looked like he was taking in every word Navyth said.

            ‘Barramundi, hmm? I daresay I could whip that up into something rather delicious for dinner,’ Glasses said.

            Good. Some well-needed respect for the catch. Navyth could live with this.

            He set the lad up, then left him to it, and no sooner had the boy begun than he slipped into the zone, completely at home with his solitude. Reminded Navyth of himself, at a younger age. Blondie was fidgeting away at the water’s edge, and the other two were strolling around the trees, talking quietly, enjoying the nature around them. Navyth didn’t ask for their names, and they didn’t ask for his. They simply … existed in the same space for a while, a part of nature together. All combined, it was far more peaceful than the previous day, and came a good ways closer to erasing the awkwardness and the ill sentiment he’d had churning in his gut.

            But the feeling did not disappear completely, lingering just beneath his skin like a hangover, and there was something that Navyth couldn’t place for the longest time.

            Then, as the Prince made his catch, excitedly showing off a brilliant barramundi to him, expecting praise that Navyth was more than willing to give, as the others crowded round to congratulate him, as Glasses started talking about making haste to Lestallum, Navyth coined the emotion he was feeling.

            He was scared for the boy. He was overcome by the idea that something terrible was going to happen, the fear that something would take that spark out of his eyes. Hardly a revolutionary notion: with war in the Capital, and with the Empire’s troops ever-advancing, the Prince was obviously on the run. But there was more to it than that, and again came the image of the poor fish needlessly gasping for breath under that man’s magnetic gaze.

            But Navyth congratulated the lad with a smile on his face and pep in his voice nonetheless, and he even gave him a lure from his own collection. For the next fishing excursion. He’d never seen such a smile as the one he got in return.

            Then they made to go, and Navyth lifted one hand in farewell.

            ‘Take care, boys. Okay? Take care.’

            The young prince’s almond eyes widened, a bit bemused at first. Detecting the insistence in his words? Perhaps. But then he smiled.

            ‘Yeah. Will do.’


End file.
